Florida coronavirus cases near 50,000 as death toll hits 2,190
Florida’s Department of Health on Friday morning confirmed 776 additional cases of COVID-19, bringing the state total of known cases closer to 50,000. The state now has a total of 49,451 confirmed cases.
There were also 46 new deaths announced, raising the statewide death toll to 2,190.
HOW MANY CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES ARE IN SOUTH FLORIDA?
Less than half of the new cases and new deaths were in South Florida:
▪ Miami-Dade County reported 155 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 12 new deaths. The county’s confirmed total is now at 16,522 with 614 deaths, the highest in the state.
▪ Broward County reported 66 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and no new deaths. The county’s confirmed total is now at 6,580 with 286 deaths.
▪ Palm Beach County saw 104 additional confirmed cases of COVID-19 and three new deaths. The county’s known total is now at 5,072 with 311 deaths.
▪ Monroe County confirmed one additional case of the disease and no new deaths. The Florida Keys now have 101 known cases and three deaths.
Here’s a breakdown on what you need to know:
CONFIRMED COVID-19 CASES IN FLORIDA
More than half of the state’s known COVID-19 cases are in South Florida’s four counties: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe. Miami-Dade continues to lead the state with the most confirmed cases and deaths. It has 16,522 known cases and 614 deaths.
Despite the daily reports of new cases and deaths, local and state officials have previously said that decreases in the daily total of reported cases are signs that social-distancing measures are working.
Officials are also relying on hospitalization data. Unlike testing, which might be limited or take days to report results, hospitalizations can help give officials a real-time visual of how many people are severely ill with COVID-19.
The health department says it doesn’t “have a figure” to reflect the number of people currently hospitalized and only provides the total number of hospitalizations in its statewide and county-level data.
On Friday morning, 171 hospitalizations were added, raising the statewide total count to 9,117.
Scientists are also still working to learn more about the virus, including how many people in the community are actually infected with the disease and have mild or no symptoms, which can make it difficult to determine what percentage of the cases hospitalizations represent.
COVID-19 Testing in Florida
Testing in Florida has seen a steady growth since the COVID-19 crisis began and has begun to see a steady decline in the percentage of people testing positive.
Testing, like hospitalizations, helps officials determine the virus’ progress and plays a role in deciding whether it is safe to lift stay-at-home orders and loosen restrictions.
The recommended numbers of daily tests needed vary by experts, but the dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Medicine told the governor Florida needs to test about 33,000 people every day.
Florida’s Department of Health reported 21,588 new tests in Friday’s daily COVID-19 update.
In total, the state has done 837,172 tests. Of the total tested, 49,451 or 5.91 percent have tested positive for the disease.
But health experts told the Miami Herald last month they were concerned the number of pending COVID-19 tests listed by the state is an undercount because Florida reports only the number of Floridians waiting to get test results from state labs, not private ones — and private labs are completing more than 90% of state tests.
Previously, it’s taken as long as two weeks for the results of pending tests from private labs to be added into the state’s official count, making it difficult for officials to project the size and scale of the pandemic in the state.
And on Monday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed that a weekend spike of about 550 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Miami-Dade County was largely due to a backlog of three-week-old test results from an undisclosed testing site. He said the site was “not affiliated with the state.”
This story was originally published May 22, 2020 at 11:54 AM.
